Boris Johnson faces fresh pressure over Lord Lebedev's peerage after oligarch father sanctioned

Boris Johnson is facing renewed pressure to release "critical information" about the appointment of Lord Lebedev after the peer's father, a former KGB officer, was subjected to new sanctions by Canada.

Alexander Lebedev, a Russian businessman and former KGB officer, was one of 15 Russian nationals targeted on Friday with a visa ban and asset freeze for their alleged ties to the Kremlin.

Mr Lebedev bought Britain’s Evening Standard and Independent newspapers in 2010 before transferring ownership to his son, Lord Lebedev, who is known for his close ties to Mr Johnson.

Mr Lebedev is still listed as a director of Independent Print Ltd, which according to its most recent Company House statement for the year ending 2020 provided outsourced digital publishing services to the Independent and Standard.

However, a representative for The Independent said that Independent Print Ltd. had no relationship with either newspaper.

Lord Lebedev, who has spoken out against the war in Ukraine, received his peerage in 2020. The Government last month missed a deadline to publish security advice linked to his ennoblement after a vote in the Commons and questions over the extent of the Prime Minister's personal involvement.

Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, said: "Labour has been clear that anyone with links to the KGB must face sanctions. The Conservatives have been so slow and too soft in issuing sanctions to those with links to Putin.

"There is now an extremely strong case for Alexander Lebedev to face sanctions from the UK and the Government must now urgently look at the evidence. Boris Johnson has form when it comes to protecting the Lebedevs.

"He failed to release critical information relating to the appointment of Alexander Lebedev’s son to the House of Lords, despite concerns from the security services. This is another case of the Prime Minister bending the rules to protect his friends."

'Huge conundrum in British politics'

Bill Browder, a financier whose campaigning for effective sanctions against oligarchs was central to the introduction of the Magnitsky Act, said the news created a "huge conundrum in British politics".

"I think it’s quite explosive because generally when you sanction an oligarch you should also be looking at his family members and his son is in the House of Lords," he said.

"It certainly doesn’t look good - it didn’t look good on the surface, but now it looks even worse."

Ms Rayner's renewed call for transparency comes after Labour had urged the Government to comply fully with the Commons vote requiring the release of information.

Earlier this month, the party said the public "have a right to know the truth" about the extent of Mr Johnson's alleged involvement.

Mr Lebedev, 62, served at the Soviet Embassy in London in the 1980s and has built a fortune in Russia in banking and airline companies.

He was not among the group of Russia’s richest men invited to the Kremlin to meet President Vladimir Putin in the first week of the invasion, nor has he been seen in public or made any statements since the start of the war.

Mr Lebedev was also a co-owner of Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s sole independent newspaper which had to shut down last month due to a wartime censorship law.

Dmitry Muratov, the paper’s editor-in-chief and last year’s Nobel Prize winner, defended the Lebedev family in March in the face of potential Western sanctions, hailing the Russian businessman for bankrolling the paper while no other Russian businessman was willing to do so.

Amid criticism from opposition politicians about his peerage in March, Lord Lebedev said earlier this year: "I have nothing to hide. I have no links to the Kremlin. Never even been inside apart from the museum."

Both Downing Street and Lord Lebedev have pointed to his business and philanthropic activities, including raising more than £75 million for charitable causes, as reasons for his elevation to the Lords.

He published an open letter to Putin in the Evening Standard at the start of the war, urging him to stop his assault on Ukraine.

In February, Mr Johnson told the Commons that Britons "should not allow our indignation and rage at what is happening in Ukraine to spill over into casual Russophobia".

A UK Government spokesman said: "This Government has been resolute in standing up to Russian aggression. We keep all sanctions under review and they are determined after careful consideration."

Mr Lebedev, Lord Lebedev’s office and the Foreign Office were contacted for comment.